Custom 1994 Toyota Pickup - A Weapon of Mass Destruction

William decided that if he were ever to have a rematch, he'd have more going for him than simply a nifty little pickup!

More than four years ago, William Stacks stopped by a local used car lot on his way home one evening to check out a truck. He'd been looking for a mini-truck to customize, and after poring over the lines of the red '94 Toyota standard cab at the lot, he made a deal with the owner to buy that truck -- for $50 a week. Once the truck was in his possession, William began the first buildup, which left it looking like a wannabe track truck, complete with racing stripes and Nissan 300ZX wheels. The truck stayed this way for a year until William grew a pair and cut it up to build something more worthwhile. This was the buildup that would turn the truck into the machine you see pictured.

One night after work, William left Silver Star Customs and decided he'd try to keep up with Clyde Bynum's (the owner of Silver Star Customs) Toyota Supra turbo. After hitting a buck-twenty and keeping it there for a few minutes, things became a little edgy under the hood of William's truck. When William realized the stock Toyota engine couldn't hang with the Supra, he backed off, but unfortunately, he didn't climb out of the go-pedal soon enough. He limped his wounded truck back to the shop to find that he'd blown his engine big time. The truck was down for the count, so William decided his downtime would now count for something rather than spend it waiting for new parts and the head and block to come back from the machine shop.

William decided that if he were ever to have a rematch with Clyde's Supra, he'd have more going for him than simply a nifty little pickup. With this in mind, William tore his truck apart, pulled out the beat-down engine, and sent it to G-Man's Toyota for a complete overhaul and a heavy-duty buildup. The 22RE head was ported and polished, and the block was machined by Pro Block and put together by G-Man's Toyota in Memphis. What William received back from Pro Block and G-Man was more than stout enough to withstand the punishment he'd throw at it with a T3-T4 turbo kit and 15 pounds of boost from Turbonetics. With the engine out of the way, William got down and dirty with the body of the truck, transforming it completely.

William started by shaving the body of his truck to make it as visually appealing as possible. Next, he built an inner structure behind the cab that reinforced both the cab and the bed before he built new sheetmetal to fill the gap between them, making the truck a unibody vehicle. When the body was smooth and straighter than it had ever been, William taped off the body and decided to lay graphics on one side of the truck. Using about a dozen various House of Kolors hues over a DuPont basecoat, William set to make his truck truly one-of-a-kind.

William and Clyde reworked the inside of the bed floor to add strength to the overall body and open up the floor so everyone could see the next phase of the setup: a '91 Toyota Supra turbo rearend with a crazy cantilever airbag setup. Connecting the 'bags to the suspension are a pair of laser-cut, polished stainless plates that look menacing, and have proven to be, as they've bitten just about every guy at Silver Star who's worked on the Toyota.

Next, William set about making the engine of his truck work with the Turbonetics system. Because he wanted the truck to perform its best, he installed an intercooler just behind the lower valance of the 4Runner front bumper. With a newly rebuilt engine, painted, polished, and detailed to impress under the hood, William also had plenty of bite to go along with the work he'd done to the outside of the truck.

William then tore everything out of the cab of his truck and sent the seats to King's Upholstery in Canaan, Mississippi. The crew pulled off the original seat upholstery and wrapped them using blue and black leather. While the seats were out being transformed, William spent many hours reworking the interior of his Toyota. He built a custom center console from fiberglass that contains a Memphis Car Audio Memphis Belle amplifier, as well as six Memphis Car Audio 10-inch subwoofers, the controls for his air ride system, and the five-speed factory shifter. The dash was smoothed, and three Auto Meter gauges were molded into the passenger-side of the dash before the whole thing was painted the same blue as the exterior of the truck. Before reinstalling the dash, the truck's graphics were taped off to flow from the hood, over the dash, and up the center console.

William finished the truck by installing the stereo system using a Pioneer head unit and Memphis Car Audio amplifiers and speakers. He then put the last electrical connection on the truck, detailed it, and put it on a trailer for a trip to Las Vegas for the Truckin' & Sport Truck Vegas Nationals and a well-deserved vacation with his family afterwards in Southern California. While he was here, we were able to shoot the truck for this month's cover, and we saw the truck every day for a week while it lived in our driveway at home, making writing this article one of the easiest in a long time. Thankfully, the truck's all done and it's home again now -- and we got our driveway back!